Semiotics is in principle the discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie. If something cannot be used to tell a lie, conversely it cannot be used to tell the truth: it cannot in fact be used "to tell" at all.

The function of memory is not only to preserve, but also to throw away. If you remembered everything from your entire life, you would be sick.

The monkish vows keep us far from that sink of vice that is the female body, but often they bring us close to other errors. Can I finally hide from myself the fact that even today my old age is still stirred by the noonday demon when my eyes, in choir, happen to linger on the beardless face of a novice, pure and fresh as a maidens?

Deciding what is being talked about is a kind of interpretive bet.

I would define the poetic effect as the capacity that a text displays for continuing to generate different readings, without ever being completely consumed.

A book is a fragile creature, it suffers the wear of time, it fears rodents, the elements and clumsy hands. so the librarian protects the books not only against mankind but also against nature and devotes his life to this war with the forces of oblivion.

... luckily, Eden is soon populated. The ethical dimension begins when the other appears on the scene.